Picking Up the Pieces (24 page)

Chapter 25: Lily

As I climbed the stairs to my apartment, I couldn’t help the anxious feeling I had.
I had spent extra time at work, trying to immerse myself in correcting papers and lesson planning to get my mind off of Max. But when that didn’t work, I went to the gym to blow off some steam. Unfortunately, none of it did jack shit to lessen the nagging feeling I had in the back of my brain that told me I had to see him. I had to know why he’d done it. And I couldn’t risk asking him over the phone, where he could easily lie to me. Only his eyes could assure me of the truth. No, I was going to have to do it in person.

I unlocked the door and walked tiredly into my apartment.
I heard Amanda and Shane bickering in the kitchen, so I started in that direction. I had been surprised when Amanda had told me she’d be there tonight when we spoke earlier since they spent most of their time at Shane’s. I leaned against the doorjamb, listening to their latest squabble without them realizing I was there.
Seriously? Who fights about popcorn?
After making my presence known, I headed off to my room to get ready.

I walked out of my room twenty five minutes later wearing a pair of dark-rins
e skinny jeans and a black boatneck sweater that hugged my thin frame. It was the fourth outfit I had tried on in my quest to capture the right look. I wanted to be casual, but appealing. I tried to convince myself that I wanted to look appealing just because that’s what all women want. It had nothing to do with the man I was on my way to see. A man who would definitely appreciate the way this tight sweater cupped my ample breasts.
Nope, not thinking about that at all.

I entered the living room to find Amanda and Shane on the couch.
They were still arguing about the fucking popcorn.
These two are certifiable.

But the mood in the air quickly changed as Amanda's hand hit something at the bottom of Shane's popcorn bowl. Next thing I knew, Shane was down on one knee and Amanda was yelling, "Yes, I'll marry you
," as she hugged him tightly.

Shane stood with Amanda still in his arms.
They deepened the embrace as Shane lifted her off the ground and hugged her fiercely. It was in this moment that I realized I was crying. And that I shouldn’t be there. No wonder Shane had seemed unhappy to see me. I was crashing his proposal. So, as much as I desperately wanted to congratulate them and get a good look at the rock he’d bought her, I didn’t. I almost made it to the door when Amanda spotted me.

“Oh, my God, Lily, I totally forgot you were here.”

I smiled. “I really shouldn’t be. Congratulations you guys. I’m just . . . I’m so happy for you both. I’ll let you guys have your privacy.”

Amanda pulled slightly away from Shane as she asked, “Are you coming home tonight?”

Even during one of the most important events of her life, Amanda couldn’t help but let
her suspicion get the better of her. She knew I wasn’t going out with Adam tonight, since I had told her as much when we’d talked earlier, and this was her way of asking who I
was
seeing tonight. She’d been subtly probing me for information about Max ever since the hockey game. I felt bad that I still hadn’t come clean to her, but I just couldn’t. I wasn’t ready to make her understand why I was seeing him again.
I
didn’t even know why I was seeing him again. Our meeting at the game had been a chance encounter, but I couldn’t say the same for tonight. And a part of me felt guilty for not only seeing him, but for knowing that I had no plans to tell Adam about it.

And though I knew he’d have an issue with this kind of dishonesty, I was confident that my decision to see Max was the right one.
I couldn’t put my relationship with Max behind me until I got the answers I needed. But dragging Adam into this served no purpose. In this instance, what he didn’t know really
wouldn’t
hurt him.

“Of course,” I said, finally answering Amanda’s question. “Why wouldn’t I come home? I’m just going to meet up with some friends,” I replied innocently, hoping to dissuade her curiosity. It didn’t work.

“I just wasn’t sure what kind of
friends
these were.”

“Since you pluralized ‘friends,’ and asked me if I was spending the night elsewhere, are you insinuating that I’m engaging in recreational sex with multiple partners?” I pretended to be affronted as I put my hand on my chest for effect, hoping humor would stop her from grilling me so I could get the hell out of there.

“Well, ya never know with you,” Amanda replied with a smirk.

Damn. I walked right into that one.
“Well, it’s been lovely chatting with you crazy kids, but I’ve taken up enough of your night. Besides, I have places to be and evidently tons of people to bang.” I pulled the front door open and looked down at them, “You guys are really great together.” I started to close the door behind me, but popped my head back in quickly. “Oh, and don’t fuck on my couch.” And with that, I slammed the door and made my way downstairs, smiling broadly.

***

Once in my car, thoughts of Amanda and Shane drifted away. Instead, my thoughts were consumed with what I was doing. I was walking a delicate line and had to be careful not to sway too far one way or the other.
Why was I putting myself through this?
The situation I currently found myself in caused nothing but stress. And it was a huge distraction. I had just learned how to handle my own shit when I had
his
foisted upon me. And his shit was
way
heavier than mine. Then I free myself from all of the Max-centered drama, only to willingly walk back into it. And for what? I really didn’t need this aggravation when I had just gotten myself back on track with Adam.

But, ultimately, I knew why I was doing it. I just couldn’t leave things on bad terms with Max, especially not now that I knew what he had done for me.
And I knew that he still needed me. Yes, it was twisted and confusing and more than slightly insane, but none of that really mattered. Not when you had the power to help someone put the pieces back together again. Even if his life would never be perfect, at least it could be whole. After all, I had been the reason he had shattered in the first place. I had to try and make it right.

As I parked my car and walked up his driveway, I thought about how far our relationship had come in the past four months.
He had gone from flat out refusing to see me, to yelling at me, to calling me late at night when his depression hit him hardest, to finally starting to let me back into his life. And I did want to be in his life, even if it had disaster written all over it.

I rang the doorbell and took a deep breath.
I wondered if I would always experience this hesitation when I saw him. Despite how much progress our friendship had made before I’d ended it, I still felt butterflies at the prospect of being in his company.
As he pulled the door open, my eyes surveyed him briefly, and I quickly tried to steel my resolve. I was there for noble reasons. I was there as a friend. I would
not
fall back into the same old pattern with him. He deserved better than that. But goddamn, was he sexy.

“Hey,” he said quietly, a shy smile playing on his lips.
His coyness only made him more attractive. This man in front of me was different from the one I knew so intimately nine months ago. I wasn’t sure which I liked more.

He stepped back so that I could enter. As I moved closer to him, I felt the familiar jolt of electricity that crackled between us whenever we were near.
The feeling both terrified and titillated me. I looked up at him as I passed, our gazes locking instantly, and I spoke the only word
my mind could formulate.

“Hi.”

Chapter 26: Max

Am I fucking dreaming?
What the hell is she doing here?
My mind was rapid firing expletive-filled questions as I watched her walk into my house and greet my dogs.
Why do I feel like my heart is going to beat out of my fucking chest?
I closed the door, and tried to regulate my breathing. And my emotions.

             
I wasn’t sure how I felt about having her there. On one hand, I was more excited than a six-year-old on Christmas. But on the other, I felt like an inmate peering out of the prison fence, looking at the life he would never have. I turned around to see her bent down on one knee, petting my dogs as they licked her lovingly. I’d never been more jealous of an animal in my life. “I’m surprised to see you. Everything okay?” My voice was soft, quiet, unsure. All of the things I normally wasn’t.

             
She straightened, dropped her shoulders, and turned around to face me. “I’m not sure.” Her face contorted into a genuine look of confusion.

             
“That sounds . . . ominous.”

             
She laughed and I was overcome with the depth with which I loved that laugh. Part of my road to self-discovery over the past few weeks had involved me coming to terms with my feelings for Lily. And as I finally accepted how deep they were, I knew that I had to also accept that they’d never be returned. But with her there, in my house, a slight flicker of hope radiated within my chest. And I almost hated her for putting it there. This unannounced visit would set back the progress I had made in trying to get over her. And since there had been virtually no progress to begin with, I knew I was totally fucked.

             
She looked down at her hands clasped in front of her before jerking her eyes up to me sheepishly. “I have to ask you something, and I need the truth.”

             
“Am I known for lying to you?” Though I’m sure she hadn’t intended it to, her comment stung. Between the two of us, I was definitely
not
the bigger liar.

             
Reading the irritation in my voice, she dropped her hands and lifted her face so that I could see her fully. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to insult you. I just meant that I don’t want you to spare anything. I want to know it all.”

             
My arms were crossed over my chest, and I leaned against the nearest wall. “Go ahead.”

             
“Why did you talk to Adam?” She wasted no time asking the question, almost as if she needed to hurry up and put it out there before she lost the nerve.

             
My body jerked slightly at her words. Of all the things I thought she’d come here to ask me, this wasn’t one of them. I had expected an inquiry about the coupon I’d slipped in her coat, or my not telling her about the broadcasting gig, but definitely not this.
What the hell kind of fucked up mind games is Carter playing?
I lifted myself off the wall and dropped my hands to my side, before raising
my shoulders in a small shrug. “If he told you about our conversation, then I think it’s clear why I did it.”

             
“It’s not.”

             
I stared at her for a moment, willing her with my eyes not to do this. The talk with Adam had been one of the most difficult things I’d ever done in my life. Ceding defeat to that prick had been gut-wrenching. I’d replayed the night in my mind at least a hundred times:
sometimes with regret, sometimes with sadness, and sometimes with rage. “I don’t want to stand in the way of anyone’s happiness anymore. That’s all.”

             
“Oh come on, Max. First I find the apology coupon, and then Adam tells me that you went to him and promised you’d stay away from me. I—"

             
“A promise you’re making me break by being here, I might add. What do you want from me, Lily? To admit that I’m a dick? Fine, I’m a dick. Everything you said to me that night in my driveway was the truth. I’m a taker, a user, a spoiled brat who’s only out for himself. But I don’t
enjoy
being that person, especially not when it comes to you. So I finally try to be a decent person for once in my life and fix something that
I
broke, and I get fucking interrogated for it in my own goddamn house.” The more I spoke, the more my anger flared. She was always fucking with my head, calling me out on things that were best left the hell alone. Why couldn’t she just go have her happily ever after with that asshole and leave me to try and figure out my own shit?

             
“Stop being a drama queen. I’m not interrogating you; I’m just trying to figure out . . .” she flailed her hand in my direction, “you.” She took a deep breath and seemed to try to organize her thoughts before she spoke again. “I feel bad.”

             
I started to speak—tell her that I didn’t need her fucking pity—but she rose a hand to stop me.

             
“I feel bad because I’ve placed a lot of blame on you for everything that’s happened in my life during the past year. And even though I’ve said over and over again that I accept responsibility for my actions, I really haven’t. It’s easier to lash out at you, to make you the bad guy, to point out all of your flaws and shortcomings than to take ownership of my own. When I called you in September, I acted like I was doing some noble thing: helping out poor, sad Max. But we both know I’m far from noble, don’t we?” She smiled sadly. “Part of me needs you. And whether it’s because you’ll willingly play the bad guy so that I don’t have to, or because you so adeptly play the victim while I get to be the savior, or because we have some kind of fucked up co-dependence, I’m really not sure. But whatever it is, I can’t let you feel that you need to keep paying for some sin that you never committed.” Suddenly, her face lit up into a genuine smile. “I’m here to help ya down off the cross, Samson. You don’t need to pay for my mistakes anymore.”

             
I stood there for a second, trying to process what the hell had just happened. Then, my lips twitched into a sardonic smile as I said, “Did I just get saved?”

             
Lily released a throaty laugh and shook her head. “You’re such an ass.”

             
I let the smile fade slowly from my lips. Then I looked at her seriously. “So where does all of this leave us?”

             
“I don’t know.” She rubbed a hand over her face. “My life is beyond complicated.” She looked at me hopefully, clearly wanting me to pose a solution that could make this all better. But there was no such solution.

             
“I think that we both only complicate things further for each other.”

             
Her brows lifted in surprise at my words, but then she cast her gaze downward, accepting the truth of them all the same.

             
She stayed silent, so I continued. “We both have a lot to figure out. And while I don’t plan to actively
avoid
you, especially since I was serious when I told Shane I wanted to see what that CrossFit bullshit is all about, I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to try to have any kind of meaningful friendship right now. We’re people with a history that we can’t ignore, but I don’t think that necessarily means we can have a common future. We’re just not heading in the same direction.”

             
Lily looked at me thoughtfully. “You’re doing it again.”

             
“What?”

             
“The whole new I’m-selfless-and-I-want-to-do-what’s-best-for-everyone-else thing. It’s kind of endearing,” she teased.

             
I blushed at her words, but tried to cover it with a laugh. “Let’s not get crazy. I’m pretty sure I’m still an asshole.”

             
Then she grew serious, closing the distance between us as she placed her hand on my cheek. “But an endearing asshole all the same.” She leaned into me, raised up on her tiptoes, and placed a soft kiss on my cheek where her hand had just been. “See ya around, Max.”

And with that, she walked around me, opened the door, and disappeared behind it.

I stood there, looking at the door
that had just led her away from me. After who knows how long, I reached beside me on the wall and flicked off the foyer light. “Goodbye, doll,” I whispered before heading upstairs and going to sleep.